Mom arrested after baby found left alone in stroller

The Stockton Police Department has arrested 30-year-old Reyna Espanola for allegedly leaving her 1-year-old baby boy in a stroller near Madison Street and Harding Way in Stockton.

Multiple witnesses told FOX40 they saw a couple fighting in the area around 10 pm Thursday. They both ran off and left a stroller behind. One of the witnesses said he was too afraid to approach the stroller but one person did – a mother of a 4-year-old child who couldn't walk away.

"Oh, my first instinct was to get him out of and just let him know that he wasn't alone," Nicole Ramirez, a Stockton resident said.

Those who know Nicole Ramirez said it was maternal instinct that took over when she approached a stroller on the corner of Madison Street and Harding Way in Stockton on Thursday night.

"Because he was there for a good minute alone," she said.

Ramirez said she and others who stay at Valley Sober Living across the street saw a man beating up a woman around 10 pm. That couple then left a stroller in a parking lot a stroller no one but Ramirez approached.

"She's a hero, she's a hero, you know she really is," George Casillas, Ramirez's friend said.

"I just unbuckled him quick, felt his diaper, came in and changed him and just hold him the whole time," Ramirez told us.

She added that the 1-year-old baby boy screamed when she picked him up and even tried to mouth a few words "Just trying to get mom out and dad. He couldn't clearly but that's what he was going for."

She claimed she noticed the baby had blood on his face but all she could do was hold him tightly before officers arrived, "He kept pointing in the way the parents went," she said.

Less than 24 hours later, the Stockton Police Department arrested the boy's mother.

For Ramirez, she just hopes the baby boy will be ok, "I don't want to judge anybody in the incident but as long as somebody's there for that baby and he got to where he's safe now," Ramirez said.

The baby is in protective custody. CPS and Stockton PD are still investigating.